Governor Greg Abbott traveled to Jasper to deliver remarks and take part in the ribbon cutting and dedication of the Dr. Ron A. McMurry, MD Mediplex, a new medical complex named for a physician who spent four decades caring for the East Texas community. The facility brings dermatology, interventional pain management and pediatric care under one roof, along with an Air Evac Lifeteam air-rescue base known locally as Air Rescue 3.
According to kfdm.com, Abbott delivered remarks and participated in the ribbon cutting and dedication of the new Mediplex, which carries the name of a doctor whose work shaped healthcare access across the region for a generation. The same report describes the Mediplex’s services as including dermatology, interventional pain management and pediatric facilities alongside the Air Rescue 3 base, a detail the Governor Abbott Press Office echoed in its own announcement of the dedication on X.
Who Was Dr. Ron McMurry
Dr. Ronnie A. “Ron” McMurry was remembered by kfdm.com as an eighth-generation Texan, a United States Army combat veteran and a family physician who cared for Jasper for forty years. He also served as director of the Jasper-Newton County Public Health District, where he expanded care for low-income Texans and pregnant women, the outlet reports.
McMurry passed away on January 6, 2026, according to his obituary published by Robinson Funeral Home, which described him as a longtime family physician in Jasper. The obituary notes that in 2018 he was elected to the Jasper Hospital District Board of Directors and later served as its president, a role from which he kept pushing to widen local access to care.
Under his leadership, the Jasper Hospital District opened its first district-owned clinics in 2024: the Primary Care Pavilion in Jasper and Total Care at the Lake in Brookeland, per the obituary. Those two clinics remain in operation today, according to the Jasper Hospital District’s own website, which notes the district was formed in 1964 to help bring quality medical care to the local community.
More Rural Health Investment on the Way
The hospital district says its expansion isn’t finished. “We have two new clinics and there are more in progress,” the district states on its website, pointing to continued growth in local healthcare infrastructure beyond the Mediplex dedication.
The Jasper dedication also lands against a backdrop of a much larger state push into rural healthcare funding. In December, Governor Abbott secured more than $1.4 billion in federal Rural Health Transformation Program funds for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, kfdm.com reports. Fox4Beaumont, in its own coverage of the dedication, put a finer point on the figure, noting the award works out to $281 million a year for five years and was the largest award of any state.
Marking the occasion on X, the Governor Abbott Press Office wrote: “We honor Dr. McMurry’s memory by expanding access to life-saving care for Texans all across our state.” The post framed the Mediplex as part of a broader statewide effort to strengthen rural healthcare access, tying McMurry’s decades of local service to the state’s larger funding push.
